The Coffin Tree

‘Shut up, Bert,’ said Coffin, he looked annoyed. ‘Archie, this is Phoebe Astley who might be joining us as head of our Liaison Unit.’

Archie held out a hand, he knew how to read this, she would be joining them. ‘Glad to see you here. We’ve got something interesting for you.’

‘Let’s take a look then.’

Young led the way through a gate into the patch of ground. ‘Was a row of allotments once, you can still see the outlines of the beds, and Waters uses that old shed over there.’

‘Oh, does he?’

‘For purposes of his own, which are God knows what. Anyway, that’s how he comes into it. He’s always over here so whatever goes on, the neighbours just assume it’s him. And he admits himself he had started to build something here.’

He was walking ahead of them. ‘This is it.’

A circle of blackened grass which was sodden where the fire hoses had played ran round a large pile of what had been wood and straw and wooden boxes. On the top lay a blackened hard object. Over everything was the sour, nose-pricking smell of burnt flesh.

‘The police surgeon couldn’t get too close – the heat; the fire chief said to leave it to cool down, but he had enough of a look to say it was human. Once.’

‘Badly charred,’ said Coffin.

‘Yeah … the wood and hay and stuff were smouldering for some time and no one took any notice; they thought it was old Waters burning something. It seems there were two fires: Albert started one in the morning.’

Coffin walked right and then the other way, widdershins.

‘What does Albert have to say about it?’

‘He’ll tell you himself, only too anxious to talk. Says he had an early morning bonfire … He admits he started to build something, not sure what, but invention gave out so he was waiting for the gods to give him a clue. But he denies putting a body there.’

As he would do.

Something in Archie Young’s voice made Coffin look at him. ‘So? So what?’

‘One neighbour said she saw a person she thought was Albert, climbing on to the pyre. Albert says no.’

‘Well, he didn’t get burned to death which bears that out. And he’s not a liar; inventive, yes; mad, yes, and often a nuisance, but not a liar.’

Phoebe in her turn had walked round the bonfire site. The ground all round was muddy and trampled down. But she spotted something lying further away on the grass.

‘There’s a shoe here.’

Coffin nodded. ‘I know, I saw.’

Young said: ‘It’s left there till we’ve photographed everything. That’s about to be done; just waiting for us to clear away.’

‘It’s a woman’s shoe. Neat, high heeled. Looks expensive.’

‘Doesn’t mean the body is that of a woman,’ said Archie Young carefully. ‘The witness we’ve got said she saw a man. Or she thought so, wearing trousers.’

‘Women wear trousers.’

Young didn’t bother to answer that. His wife wore trousers, Stella Pinero wore trousers, half the women he worked with wore trousers. ‘When the body is examined we shall know the sex.’

‘I wonder what sort of trousers they were,’ said Phoebe. ‘The sort of trousers can tell you a lot about a woman. I mean, tight jeans, flares, jodhpurs, Turkish trousers, caught at the ankle.’

‘She just said trousers, I think that was all she could see. Ask her if you like, she lives next door to Albert Waters – she made a statement.’

Phoebe looked at Coffin. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll have that word I promised Albert.’

‘Right.’ She could read his face: Be my eyes, he was saying, be my ears, then report back. I want to know.

‘Number six. Fashion Street,’ said Young. ‘I think you’ll find her there, I saw her looking out of the window. She’ll probably enjoy a visit, I think she’s hoping to be on the evening TV news.’

Phoebe walked away while Coffin turned towards Albert Waters who was leaning against the fence and smoking a pipe.

‘I haven’t smoked a pipe for years, but I needed it today and one of your chaps let me go and get some pipe tobacco … It isn’t what it used to be, I think the tobacco leaf has changed. You hardly ever smell a decent pipe smoke now.’

‘Not many people smoke them these days.’

‘Not in public, in private maybe.’

Coffin leaned against the fence beside the old man whose hands were trembling. ‘You’re talking too much, Albert,’ he said kindly.

‘I always do when I’m nervous; you should have known me in the war, Hitler’s war, even I’m not old enough for the Kaiser. Talked a blue streak, I did then.’

‘What did you do in the war?’

‘Gunner. Not in the air, thank God, that was the killer, I did have a tank all round me.’

‘So what’s making you nervous now?’

‘What do you think? I did light a fire there, this morning. I thought I’d get rid of some rubbish. It smouldered all day but I didn’t take any notice; it couldn’t harm anyone, I thought.’

‘Didn’t the smell worry you?’

‘I had some old mattresses on them filled with horse hair, I thought it was that.’ Albert looked tearful. ‘You don’t think of bodies … then I saw the flames, and I thought: Here you are, better have a look at that … Then I saw what was burning up there. It was me called the police. Police first, fire brigade next.’

‘You knew it was a body?’

Albert chewed at his pipe. ‘Smelt it. I knew that smell. Told you I was in a tank, didn’t I? Smelt a jerry like that. One of ours too, mate of mine.’

‘All right, I understand. The smell reminded you of too much.’

Albert kept quiet for a moment. ‘I could do with a drink.’

‘Later, Albert. I’ll stand you one myself.’

Albert grinned – he had a pleasant grin, and Coffin could see the cheerful young cockney who had gone to war. What ever happened to him in that tank in that desert?

‘You built the bonfire?’